A number of employees at Los Alamos National Laboratory were working in Technical Area 22 Thursday afternoon when some of the workers detected an unusual odor.
Employees at TA-22 routinely work with small quantities of chemicals, said Jeff Berger, the lab’s communications director.
Six workers went to the LANL Occupational Medicine facility for examination. Medical personnel reportedly determined there were no injuries and the employees were released late Thursday afternoon.
Terese Ford, a physician at the Occupational Medicine facility, said the six lab employees came back to the clinic and were re-checked Friday morning and they were all released.
The lab hazmat team was dispatched to the scene as a precaution. Members of the hazardous materials unit were taking samples and conducting tests.
“They did some general air monitoring, checking for various odors,” said Steve Sandoval of the LANL communications office on Friday morning.
“They used a chlorine-specific colometric detector tube and the tubes change colors if they detect certain odors. The reason they used chlorine-specific tubes was because one of the people said it smelled like chlorine. They could find nothing.”
Sandoval said the building was open and the six employees were back at work Friday.